Arizona

Two days after getting home from Wyoming, the kids and I took off again.  This time we were headed to Sierra Vista, Arizona for my niece, Keesa's, wedding.  We drove up to Salt Lake the night before our early morning flight and stayed the night with Darin.  We had fun that evening going out to eat with Darin and then going to a fun frozen yogurt place where you add your own toppings.  The kids loved it, and so did I!
I was a little nervous about handling the airport and boarding the plane by myself with the kids.  Haylie was extremely nervous about flying so I was afraid she was going to throw a big fit when I tried to get her on the plane.  We had talked about it with her tons of times so I think she knew that she had to get on, there was no other choice.  Both kids were fantastic!  We met up with my brother, Ryan, on our connecting flight in Denver and Zander made a friend for life when Ryan pulled out some Legos!  They are now seasoned flyers and can't wait for another chance to do it.
While we were in Arizona, Zander became his cousin Devin's shadow.  It was fun for them to spend some time with our family in Arizona.  It was also exciting to be there for Keesa's wedding.  The ceremony in the Gila Valley temple was beautiful and so was the backyard reception.  It was a little frustrating to set it up since the wind was undoing things as fast as we could do them.  It turned out to be a great night though.  I was glad I went and missed Dave, who flew to Orlando for training a couple of days after we left for Arizona.

Ready for take off!!  Zander with a huge smile and Haylie forcing a little grin.

All of the worker bees getting ready for the reception.

Keesa with her dad, my brother in law J.D.

Keesa and J.D., Louis (the groom) and his mom

Devin and Zander bonding over some Plants vs. Zombies.

Gram Holzer's Memorial Service

On Monday, June 17th, a memorial service was held for Sally Ann Holzer, Dave's paternal grandmother.  It was held under the direction of Pastor Paula, the pastor of the church that Gram attended.  Pastor Paula said a few words, as well as Dave.  It was a nice service and it was good to finally have Gram's ashes buried.  After the service, Dave and Lyman Sibbett (a good friend to Gram and one of Dave's old high school teachers) dedicated the grave.  It was good to be there for Gram at this special time.  It was also a great chance to get to know the Holzer side of the family better.

Yellowstone

This summer was a busy summer of traveling and the first big trip that we went on was to Cowley, in Northern Wyoming.  A memorial service for Dave's grandma, Sally Holzer, was scheduled during our visit.  Dave's grandma and uncle from Pennsylvania came to Wyoming for the first time as well.  It was fun to  meet some family and take them to see some of the sights of the area.  One place we went to was Yellowstone National Park.  Dave and I have been several times but this was the first trip for the kids.  It was a LONG day of driving but we got to see some interesting sites. Next time we will plan to camp in the Park and not have so much driving to do in one day. I think the trip is best described in pictures so I will describe the pictures in the captions.

At the Park's entrance. Our family along with Alexa, our niece (Dawn's daughter)

The buffalo you would swear is a plant to excite the tourists right inside the gate.

Skipping rocks at Yellowstone Lake.  In the red is Skyler.  He is the son of Dave's Aunt Bobblie.  He is a step son to Bruce so kind of Dave's cousin.

Haylie sitting outside the Old Faithful Lodge.  The inside of this building is beautiful but there were about a million people inside trying to take pictures so I decided to not be one of them!

Old Faithful!

More buffalo.  This is about as close as you want to get when you are taking a picture with a buffalo!

Zander and the buffalo.  He was posing for Dave so that it looked like he was holding a buffalo on his hand from Dave's angle.  I will have to see if I can round up that picture.

Bowling

Haylie had a great game of bowling on a trip to the very classy bowling alley in Helper.  She beat everyone in the family!

Moab

Part of Dave's job at Emery Telcom includes providing services to Moab, UT.  Moab is a touristy little town about 2 hours from Price that has lots of mountain biking trails and areas to ride Jeeps and such around.  It is also just a couple of miles from Arches National Park.  Occasionally he has to go there to work on equipment in the middle of the night during a service window.  We have accompanied him on a couple of these trips and gotten a cheap mini vacation out of the deal.  We went on one such vacation at the end of May.  We got there in time on Friday night to go out to dinner and swim in the hotel pool.  Then the kids and I slept while Dave went to work for a couple of hours in the middle of the night.  The next morning we loaded up and went to Arches National Park.  We have been several times before but couldn't find any better suitable hikes for what we wanted to do and the time we had to spend.  It was a lot of fun and a very low stress vacation.  Minimal cost, travel, and time away from home!  This trip marked the beginning of a crazy summer of travel!

The mighty rock climbers

They made it!

A rare picture of the blog author!!

The kids kept finding fun places to squeeze into

Dave soaking in the sun

Soccer

Many of our spring evenings were spent on the soccer fields watching Haylie and Zander play soccer.  This was the third time Haylie has played and the second time that Zander has played.  The first two times Haylie played I got roped in to being the coach for her team.  I don't know much about soccer but luckily their skill level didn't require a lot of knowledge.  This season, Carbon Rec called looking for a coach for Zander's team.  I had said over and over again that I wanted to just be able to go and watch my kids play and not worry about everyone else's kids for once.  They were desperate though and Dave told me he would help too so we decided to do it.  It turned out more Dave than me.  He did a wonderful job and I enjoyed being able to sit back and watch for once!  It was kind of a chilly spring so many of the games were cold and even rainy.  Here are a couple of pictures but they aren't the greatest.  It was tricky to get a good shot with just my phone.

Haylie did great. She scored a few goals, assisted in others, and even took a ball right to the face!

Zander like to run around the field but not necessarily after the ball!  He had fun but about drove Coach Dave crazy with his antics!

Zander turns 5

Zander turned 5 on April 10, 2013 and we celebrated with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party.  We had a lot of fun coming up with decorations and games for this party.  Zander had a big guest list and had several friends not be able to come.  We still had a good time with the friends that could come.  They ate pizza, had ninja turtle cupcakes, did a cake walk kind of game with pizza boxes, and of course, opened presents.  Grandma and Grandpa O were here the weekend before his birthday so we had a little mini party with them so he could open the gifts from them.  I can't believe my little man is 5!  He is such a joy to our family.  I am grateful for his quirky sense of humor and his exuberance!  If something excites Zander you will definitely know about it.  He has a very strong will and I pray that we can guide him in the right direction so he can be a force for good.  I know he was sent to us with that strong will for a reason.  I love him SO much!!

Ninja Turtle Cupcakes

Maybe he will learn how to pose for a picture for his 6th birthday!

Enjoying some pizza in true ninja turtle fashion

Cake walk with pizza boxes

The Gifts!

Ready for opening!

Ninja Turtle decorations

Easter 2013

I love carrying on traditions from my childhood with my children.  Coloring Easter eggs is one of those traditions that I have great memories of and hope that one day my kids do too. In addition to coloring Easter eggs this year, we celebrated Easter with a ward dinner and Easter egg hunt, and by getting visited by the Easter bunny who left Easter baskets for the kids.

Happy Birthday Dave

We celebrated Dave's 34th birthday Avengers style! 

Sally Sparkle

I am a little ashamed to admit that I totally jumped on the bandwagon this year and decided to have an elf on the shelf for our kids this year leading up to Christmas.  She is a little doll that supposedly is watching you for Santa.  The story is that the elves go to the North Pole every night to report to Santa and come back every day to keep watch.  We told the kids she can't be touched or she would lose the magic to get back to the North Pole.  Our elf on the shelf was a girl (the only one left at target) and the kids named her Sally Sparkle.  They each picked a name and that is what we came up with.  We made her do some crazy things at night and the kids would wake up each morning and look for what she had done overnight.

Getting in the chocolate chips

Decorating the tree with underwear

Dumping a load of magnetic letters

Turning the milk green

She knows the real reason for Christmas!

This was fun for Dave and me to do for the kids although it got to be a little tricky trying to think of new things for her to do!  Next year we will have to start a little later in the season!

Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012 marked the first Christmas spent in our new home.  It was so fun to have room to put up our decorations and even have 2 Christmas trees!  I keep having moments where I feel more and more like my mom.  This time it was because I made the downstairs tree have all the mismatched homemade ornaments on it and the upstairs tree had matching ornaments and was a little more fancy.  That's the way we always did it growing up.  Now hopefully I can create the same kinds of wonderful memories for my kids that my parents did for me.  We enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner, read the Christmas story from the bible and opened the traditional Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve.  Santa brought the kids a trampoline so they had to wait a few months to actually get to use it.  This was kind of a strange Christmas for me because I had to leave late afternoon to head to Salt Lake City.  I had to fly out early the next morning for my niece, Janelle's, wedding.  The weather was iffy so I decided to play it safe and stay at my brother Darin's house in the Salt Lake area instead of risking driving the canyon in the wee hours of the morning.  When I got back all the new toys were put away and even six months later when I am cleaning I come across things that I didn't even know we had since I was gone when it was taken out of the package.  All in all a great Christmas with my cute little family.  Love being with them so much!

Decorating the upstairs tree

First view of Christmas morning

Christmas Pajamas